A Message from David & Cam...

Prep 100 Days of School!

It is always such a joyous occasion when the preps reach 100 days of school. All year they have been counting the days and getting increasingly excited about the 100 days celebration that will come. Finally, the day arrived and it was so nice seeing the excited smiles and wonderful 100-themed costumes as the preppies entered the school this morning.

The whole day was filled with a range of fun activities, games and celebrations! We are so proud of the prep students and all that they have achieved in their first 100 days of school. They are a fantastic group of students who are all like KEFAR!

Congratulations preps (and Prep Teachers and ES)!!

Curriculum Day Professional Learning

Our latest pupil-free day provided the opportunity for our staff to spend time engaged in further professional learning aligned with our whole school goals. The teachers spent the day working with the team at Shaping Minds, an organisation providing evidence-based professional learning with the aim of combining the science of learning with the art of teaching. Our teachers have been working with Shaping Minds over the past 12 months to refine our instructional strategies, with a particular focus on Mathematics. The professional learning provided our staff with information and resources that will help us continue to make improvements to our instruction so that all students are getting the very best education every lesson and every day.

Remaining Pupil Free Day - Monday 4 November

We have one final pupil free day on Monday 4 November (day before Cup Day) which will be a Report Writing Day. 

Mental Health Supports at AGPS

We are very excited to welcome two new staff members to AGPS to support the mental health and wellbeing of our students. We welcome Eman Souki who will join us each Wednesday as our school psychologist. Eman is well known in our community as she had previously worked at our school as a provisional psychologist. We also welcome Gemma Godfrey who is a student counsellor from Deakin University who will work with us on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Both Gemma and Eman are a welcome addition to AGPS and will work with a range of students as well as our staff to best provide support for students across our school. 

Safety Reminders

Early Arrivals

We are noticing an increasing number of students arriving early to school. A reminder that yard supervision starts at 8:45am each day. We ask that your children do not attend school prior to this time unless they are accompanied by their parent/carer. If you need to drop off your child/ren early please enrol them in our before care program provided by TeamKids.

Traffic Safety

We would like to reiterate some important safety reminders about school drop-off and pick-up:

• Park your car to a 100% stop, with the engine off, before your children exit the car
• Ensure that your children exit on the curbside
• Ensure that you and your children cross at the designated crossing area
• Refrain from double parking 
• Adhere to the speed limit of 40km per hour
• Please do not do U-turns and utilize the roundabout

Christmas in (almost) July Trivia

Friday 9th August 

It is just over a week to go for our trivia night! These nights are always a lot of fun and a great way to further build our great school community whilst supporting our fundraising efforts. The night will be filled with festive fun, games and general knowledge! 

We have lots of tables already booked and we would love to have a few more. So grab some friends, come along and have some fun. Tickets are $30 per person and can be purchased via Compass Tix here - BOOK YOUR TICKETS HERE

Interschool Sport

In the past fortnight, our Football and Netball teams competed at the Division Level. What a great achievement for our small school to reach the next stages of competition! Both sides represented AGPS wonderfully well and we are very proud of their efforts. We would like to thank Nancy for all her work in organising our Interschool Sport program along with the classroom teachers who have coached and supported the students. Well done, everyone!

Student Achievement

Ben - State Baseball Championships 

We recently found out that Ben tried out and was selected as one of the youngest players to represent City West baseball in the 2024 Division 1 State Baseball Championships! The team got to play against other representative teams over two days and they made the finals and finished 3rd overall. Great work, Ben!

We love hearing of these achievements outside of school. Please send us any news so we can celebrate their accomplishments with our whole community.

Maths Olympiad - Home Challenge

Our Mathematicians have just sat the third Olympiad Test. The continued development of effective mathematical strategies along with a high level of persistence is really pleasing to see! The students are using their prior knowledge in attempting challenging questions that often they haven't encountered previously. 

Have a go at this fortnight's Maths Olympiad questions!

1. Tracy’s Trophies charges by the letter for engraving. There is one fee for each vowel and a different fee for each consonant. CAROL costs $31 to engrave. GABRIEL costs $43 to engrave. How many dollars does BRIDGET cost to engrave? Explain your strategy!

1. An exam of 12 questions was marked by giving 10 points for a correct answer and deducting 5 points for an incorrect answer. David attempted all 12 questions, leaving no question unanswered and scored 75 points. How many wrong answers did he have? 

Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey

WE WANT OUR PARENTS / CAREGIVERS / GUARDIANS TO TELL US WHAT THEY THINK!

Our school is conducting a survey to find out what parents / caregivers / guardians think of our school. The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education that is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behavior, and student engagement. The survey is optional but we encourage all families to participate. Our school will use the survey results to help inform and direct future school planning and improvement strategies. 

All families are invited to participate in the survey.

The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open until Friday 30th August 2024.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time within the survey period on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones. The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese. 

It is a really important data set for us as we plan for further improvements to our school. The survey was completed by a large percentage of parents and carers last year and all of that data was used when planning our Annual Implementation Plan.

Information about this survey was sent via Compass and we encourage as many people as possible to take the time to respond.

We hope you all have a great weekend!

Take care,

David & Cam